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PO.DAAC
Physical Oceanography DAAC
Location
Pasadena, CA
Manager
Luke Dahl
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Founded
1980
NASA's Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) is located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. PO.DAAC manages and provides tools and services for NASA's oceanographic and hydrologic data (satellite, airborne, and in-situ) to enable greater understanding of the physical processes and condition of the global ocean and surface water on land. Measurements include gravity, ocean winds, sea surface temperature, ocean surface topography,sea surface salinity, surface water, and circulation. The data support a wide range of applications including climate research, weather prediction, resource management, policy, and the stewardship of ocean data and water resources data.
Sample data holdings include Aquarius, Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), GRACE Follow-on (GRACE-FO), NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT), Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT), Rapid Scatterometer (RapidScat), Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), TOPEX/POSEIDON, Jason-1, Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST), Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG), Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study (SPURS), Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT), Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA), and Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs).
Data search and access services include PO.DAAC Cloud Earthdata Search, POCLOUD Browse Granule Listing Interface, PO.DAAC Data Subscriber and Downloader, and Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol (OPeNDAP). The PO.DAAC Cookbook is a place to find data recipes and tutorials for PO.DAAC datasets, tools, and services, and example access mechanisms for both GUI and programmatic tools,.
Tools that provide subsetting, extraction, and visualization capabilities include High-level Tool for Interactive Data Extraction (HiTIDE), State of the Ocean (SOTO), and Earthdata Harmony.
Any questions related to PO.DAAC data can be sent to the Earthdata Forum.
PO.DAAC Data and Services
Visit the PO.DAAC website to learn more about data and services. PO.DAAC content will move into Earthdata in 2026.